The invention relates to resource policy management.
Policy data can include rules and access control information specifying permission levels associated with accessing a resource and to whom the permission is granted. It is important for a policy management system to allow the resource owner to be able to participate in the definition and the administration of policy data related to resources associated with a resource device.
In addition, the policy management system should be able to handle resources that nay be distributed over a loosely coupled network such as a network using universal plug and play (UPnP) protocols. Furthermore, since the resources are distributed over a network and may be associated with different resource owners, the policy management system should provide security features for preventing unauthorized access to the resources and to policy data associated with the resources.